battling wits with the unarmed.... :sigh:

[radfringe]

We have one resident bush supporter (RBS)at work -- he's a hard nut to crack, and just keeps coming at me. Mostly I feel sorry for him, because he's so easy to "debate". I almost feel guilty about having a battle of wits because he's unarmed....

nonetheless -- he came sauntering into my office today and asked if I heard the news which mentioned the Saddam/Bin-laden connection - RBS said that Saddam and bin-Laden met and that proves there is a connection and therefore it justifies the invasion (he actually said Iraq war, but I call it an invasion)

me: but they also reported that Saddam told Bin-laden to get lost

RBS: but,they met, they talked so there is a connection

me: (pulled up photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam on my computer....) Saddam also met with Rumsfeld, and what's this? My oh my, lookie here they are even shaking hands... Rumsfeld must also be a terrorist, ummm... if Rumsfeld is shaking hands with Saddam, and Saddam met with bin-laden --- ooops there's the Rumsfeld/Bin-laden connection so can we conclude that Rumsfeld helped Bin-Laden pull off 9-11?

RBS: but, Saddam help finance terrorism

me: mmmmmmmmmmm (pulled up old article about Reagan sending weapons to Saddam, plus articles citing training of Bin-Laden in Afghan-Soviet war).... looks like old Reagan was a terrorist too.... he not only sent weapons to Saddam, but he also trained Bin-Laden. So it looks by your reasoning that Rumsfeld AND Reagan were terrorists...
and Rumsfeld now works for Bush, and I believe they talk quite frequently... so doesn't that also make Bush a terrorist?

RBS sputtered, picked his jaw up off the floor and walked out of my office

[Beetwasher]

1. LOL!

You've got an arsenal at your fingertips! That's hilarious!

I'd say your psychic, but I know just how incredibly and pathetically predictable these losers are...

[el_gato]

2. Kudos!

The only wingnuts I know are drive by debaters. They'll say something real quick and then run off before you can respond.

[kaitykaity]

3. Aw, that's so mean.

Poor guy came in so proud and happy, and you sent him
away dejected and alone.

:yourock:

[Loonman]

4. Good one

Nice.

[derby378]

5. Hoo-ah!

You're giving them something they never had before - knowledge.

Beware Plato's "Cave" factor, though. Some of them may not want to know the facts, even now...

[LiberalVoice]

6. Good job! I hate those kinds of people.

I have a bunch of * supporter's at work.

I had the exact same conversation with a co-worker named chad.

Zak: There is absolutly no link between 9/11 and Saddam.

Chad: Yes, there is. You pretend like you're smart and yet all you have is a sad abiltiy to regurgitate information.

10 minutes later I walk into his office and drop two articles from prominent news sites showing there is NO CONNECTION between 9/11 and Saddam.

Zak: You're right Chad. I do have a sad ability to regurgitate information.

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

7. can someone post

the Rummie-Saddam picture so's I can send to my group of wing-nuts?

[Worst Username Ever]

9. I second that, I have heard of it but never seen it!

[Qutzupalotl]

11. Here you go.

[mike1963]

12. Here's a link to the picture and the story too

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

[Speck Tater]

8. Bravo. Well done. (nt)

[Blue-Jay]

10. Fish in a barrel.

It's getting too easy. Not even fun anymore.

(OK. I lied. It's still fun!)

[calimary]

13. Hey, radfringe: Great work! Please post the links to the stories you

used to back up your arguments. These would be SUPERB to have at the fingertips - in case others here (myself included) encounter the same confrontations you did. And from the responses here (and elsewhere around DU) that would be LOTS of us.

You're not just debunking lies. You're performing an essential public service. CONGRATULATIONS! WELL DONE!!!

[radfringe]

16. here's some current stories

here's a couple of "newer" stories on the connections. The one's I showed the RBS are clips I saved, don't have those links saved... sorry my bad

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/506/506p12.htm
COVER STORY: How he US armed Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons
BY NORM DIXON

On August 18, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, “Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas”. Quoting anonymous US “senior military officers”, the NYT “revealed” that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided “critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war”. The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died.

While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq's Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
========================================

Reagan's Osama Connection
How he turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, June 10, 2004, at 4:34 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102243/

Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note that a similar set of documents shows that Reagan also played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war that followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama Bin Laden.

Once again, the story concerns the fascinating relationship between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev took the helm as the reform-minded general-secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985. Within months, he had decided privately to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. One of his predecessors, Leonid Brezhnev,* had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the move was proving a disaster. Tens of thousands of Soviet troops had died; military morale was crumbling; popular protest—unheard of, till then, in Communist Russia—was rising. Part of the Soviet failure in Afghanistan was due to the fact that the Reagan administration was feeding billions of dollars in arms to Afghanistan's Islamic resistance. Reagan and, even more, his intensely ideological CIA director, William Casey, saw the battle for Afghanistan as a titanic struggle in the war between Eastern tyranny and Western freedom. (Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had started assisting the resistance, but with not nearly the same largess or ambition.)
======================


Takes a bit of digging to find the info:

http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.Collection&class=New%20Evidence%20on%20the%20Soviet%20Intervention%20in/

===================

http://www.politicalpuzzle.org/archives/002541.php
Did Ronald Reagan "groom" Osama Bin Laden?
War On Terror


The following story sheds some amazing insight into Reagan and his role in creating Osama Bin Laden. Could it be true?


Reagan's Osama Connection
How he turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, June 10, 2004, at 4:34 PM PT

Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note that a similar set of documents shows that Reagan also played a major role in bringing on the terrorist war that followed—specifically, in abetting the rise of Osama Bin Laden.

Once again, the story concerns the fascinating relationship between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

[Fear]

14. you're a MEANY!

But I know I know, it's just toooooo damn easy (and shhhh, fun) as well!

[Redleg]

15. Get a lock on your office door and use it! It will keep the nuts out.

I just don't have the time or energy to debate those fools anymore.

[Jacobin]

17. Nice!

I know a couple like that. They take a licking and keep on being stupid. True believers.

[cease_fire]

18. We need all of the information you're using...

Seriously, this kind of knowledge could be a tremendous resource!

Is there any way we could create a library of this kind of information that's accessible to us for these types of needs?

Sometimes, it only takes one bit of juicy historical fact to totally win or loose a causal debate.

I realize that this kind of information is spread through-out thousands of DU posts, but in a pinch - it's too hard to find.

Mods, can we start some sort of forum for this sort of thing?

[screenprinter]

19. How do you even begin

to deal with people who admitted, before the war, that it was a good thing because gas was too expensive?
Nevermind that that it got even more expensive recently. That's not important doncha know.

[maggrwaggr]

20. what's pathetic is you're doing the media's job for them

They are in dereliction of their responsibilities.

None of us should have to do this.

[radfringe]

21. it's also the responsibility of individual citizens

to keep up with the news

the RBS types I've encountered typically rely on the "dittohead" talkshows for their information -- they don't listen/watch/read any futher and seem content to be spoon-fed "sound bites".

No story is 100% objective, no matter how hard a reporter/journalist tries to be objective, there exists an underlying bias as they themselves sort through the information. The same goes for myself and anyone following the news -- it's just human nature to "filter" it according to our own opinions. We just have to be very much aware of which filter we are using and try to pick out the facts from the fiction.